You have a lemon - Yes I've seen lots of reports of crackling / squealing, etc.... but I've NEVER EVER experienced any of that on my SBLive, SBAudigy2 and now my Xtreme Gamer Fatality Pro series, you should not be getting the static or the loudness even with the sliders up ! Where do you have your sound plugged, what type of speakers ? What outputs are you using ? Did you run the audio calibration utlity ? The issues reported by some people throughout the years where issues with some motherboard chipsets but personally have never had problems even on my old VIA based boards.